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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25802572">peace.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/oikawafflehouse/pseuds/oikawafflehouse'>oikawafflehouse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Established Relationship, F/F, Morning Cuddles, cries in Taylor Swift, early morning contemplation, it's very nice, mentions of magic, they live in a cottage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:34:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,040</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25802572</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/oikawafflehouse/pseuds/oikawafflehouse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Picture this: two girls with their hearts on a string, shaking their fists up at the cracks in the sky, daring the gods to strike them down.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michimiya Yui/Shimizu Kiyoko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>peace.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpxX4ZE4KWE">but i'm a fire and i'll keep your brittle heart warm</a>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Now in my heart I see clearly a beautiful </em><br/>
<em>face shining back on me, </em><br/>
<em>stained with love.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>- Sappho</em>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>In the morning, everything comes to a standstill. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a kind of stillness that tugs at the collarbones and warms the air as it spreads like molasses. A hush that falls but never quite lands anywhere. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yui wants to drown herself in it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are actually a lot of things she wants, each creating a notch into the wooden frame of the bed she lies in. Some more simple than others and easy to hold like copper coins in the palm of her hand. Pancakes for breakfast, for one thing. A new whetstone, for her sword. The guaranteed safety of everyone she loves, a want that almost burns the rest away until they’re nothing more but wisps of a blown-out candle.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(<em>Make a wish, Yui</em>). </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not this, though. Not her desire to forever be in this space with Kiyoko pressed up against her like a heartbeat under the warmth of their sheets with sunlight gathering in her bones as the morning stretches on like a lazy farm cat. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sleepily, her thoughts start to wander off back to last night when they’d laid out on the grass outside while the stars above sang to them old folk songs and the light of the moon made everything seem more simple and easy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Being with Kiyoko is easy, and sometimes it frightens Yui, more so than any enemy she’s ever faced, more than any monster she’s ever gone up against. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Still. Fear means more than feeling nothing at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yui understands this, after years of swallowing jagged gemstones and compartmentalizing her thoughts into <em> protect </em> and <em> destroy</em>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> A sword is a weapon</em>, her mother tells her one day, back when things were truly as simple as moonlight. <em> You can </em> be <em> that weapon</em>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>A girl is a weapon and a weapon is a girl, and Yui becomes both, rising and falling each day until Kiyoko joins her by her side, another kind of weapon entirely that smells of smoke and rain. Somewhere along the way, amidst the fields of battle and plans gone south, they learn how to hold each other. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s all Yui wants, really. She just never knew it until it actually happened.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Outside, she can hear the gentle chirps of songbirds calling out to each other, and the sound of the wind chimes swaying through the breeze from where they hang near the front door of the cottage. Next to her, Kiyoko shifts in her sleep, and Yui can barely detect the gentle hum of the magic that courses through Kiyoko’s veins. A not-so gentle reminder of everything they’ve put on hold for these past two days. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For once, it feels like it could last forever, with streams of sunlight and golden shades of godhood coursing through their bedroom window. A perpetual moment stuck between dreams and the crushing weight of the world. Dynasties could crumple like paper and nations could fall in one fell-swoop but this would still be here. A monument to everything that is good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For once, it’s more than dropping coins in the fountain, more than a hopeful thought carved into the side of Yui’s rib cage. A possibility of undoing the impossible because of these quiet moments she’s learned how to share with Kiyoko. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It first started out on a morning like this, too, in a faraway kingdom by the water where the smell of roasted fish and salt fills the air. Hope was there, too, more tangible than ever before, balanced alongside the edges of Yui’s sword as she practiced twirling it through the air as Kiyoko haggled with merchants over the prices of their wares.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Afterwards, they had gotten peaches and cream from a street vendor two blocks away before settling in a nice shady patch of grass in the kingdom’s Royal Park. It had been nice, watching Kiyoko as she remembered how to enjoy herself without the shadow of their king and the promise of yet another war from looming over them. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s hard, keeping promises during a time like this. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>That day by the water had been a picture of normalcy, though, a day without bleeding garnet stones pressed into their eyelids. A day of peace. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yui forgets about that, sometimes. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yui glances over at Kiyoko, a smile already tugging at her lips as their eyes meet. She’s done this a million times over, both on and off the the battlefield. A ritual where Kiyoko is always one step behind, filling the gaps between them with carefully woven spells and comfortable silence as Yui leads the way, her sword blazing with a white-hot fire. Cutting through mountains and leveling pantheons. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It goes like this, over and over again, each time a new rising sun to witness as it spreads its glow over countless valleys and plains.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes it’s terrifying, or easy. Sometimes it’s just lightness. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>How could Yui ever forget this?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Picture this: Yui. Kiyoko. Magic used to light a fire in the hearth instead of the smell of burning flesh. A sword stained with happy memories instead of blood. A day by the sea. Picture this, and <em>hold on</em>).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey,” Yui manages to croak back. Her voice is scratchy from disuse, just like the thorns of the roses growing in between her lungs. A growth that stems from every time Kiyoko has ever touched her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What are you thinking about?” Kiyoko asks softly as she wraps her fingers around Yui’s hand. Yui has to resist the urge to kiss her wrist. “You look like you've been thinking about something.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yui’s not sure how to tell her of how her thoughts have been nothing more than copper coins and white flags and peaches and cream. They know each, in the light and in the dark, and Yui’s never been one to step down from a fight, as impossible as it might seem. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Still. This is more quiet, more private. It’s a feeling that sits in the pit of her stomach like a good meal. One she can’t brush away with the hilt of her sword or calloused fingertips.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She can’t remember the last time she’s felt like this, as if she’s slowing down. If she had to guess, she’d put that memory somewhere between the first time she ever held a weapon with unwavering hands and the last time she ever saw her mother all those years ago.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(<em>A sword is a weapon. You are a weapon</em>). </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I was just…I was just thinking about how I wish we could make it last. You and me. Here.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It doesn’t even sound half as silly out loud as she had once feared. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hm. Morning talk, huh?” Kiyoko proceeds to sets all of the rosebushes growing inside of Yui on fire as she lets out a small laugh that matches the wind chimes swinging outside. Kiyoko’s never been one to give up, either. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No. It’s not that,” Yui insists as she sits upright in their bed, holding the sheets close to her chest as she tries to clear her thoughts from any lingering sleepiness. “I’m being serious.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s it supposed to be then?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not just morning talk.” The bridge of her nose is on fire, and Kiyoko’s eyes are narrowed in confusion. Terrifying. Definitely terrifying. “A pancakes-for-breakfast kind of talk. Every morning, here and after kind of talk. Y’know. Settling down.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kiyoko doesn’t speak for the longest time. Her face is frozen over with neutrality, and Yui knows what she’s doing, even though they’ve never openly discussed this before. She’s running the math, checking the variables, just like she does when she’s measuring ingredients out for her new spells. A careful response because it’s never about what comes next for them. People like them don’t get a future, <em> weapons don’t have futures</em>, not when the world they live in is hell-bent on destroying itself from the inside out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They’ve never known the blue song of peace because of it, and maybe they never will, but it doesn’t stop Yui from reaching out like the rays of sun peeking through the glass and giving her courage.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t think we have any flour,” she finally says, and Yui knows this part, too, steeped in light. “For pancakes, I mean.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But could we? Could we get flour?” There’s hope hidden behind her words, just like that day by the ocean, dancing across cobblestone and balancing on the tip of a blade. The kind of hope that outlasts a simple weekend and makes all the pretenders in the world step out into the path of the morning’s glory. Like them, using these two days for themselves to hide from the shadow of a promise inside of this cottage: the end is here. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Hold on. Hold on. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is that what you want?” Kiyoko asks. She’s sitting up now, too, melting over these soft edges out as the sun reaches out and covers her with its rays of light.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course I do.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Hold on. Hold on. Try to change the ending. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“There’s also going to be more monsters,” Kiyoko warns with a voice as slick as melting ice, as if this were cautionary tale about falling in love. Yui can tell she’s thought about this before, too, perhaps even more than she has. “There’ll always be more quests to go on. Power-hungry mages to defeat. Wars.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s a heavy, unspoken question hanging in the air: <em> what about the rest of the world? </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Another question to meet it head-on unapologetically: <em> what about us? What about us, the weapons, the tools of destruction and gilded victories? </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Picture this: two girls with their hearts on a string, shaking their fists up at the cracks in the sky, daring the gods to strike them down).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“There’s always going to be us, too,” Yui says, almost choking on the sweet taste of her hubris as she reaches out to grab Kiyoko’s hand, because this is what they know: how to hold each other. This is their secret language, pressed in their own shades of blue and gold. There is that hurt and there is that pain, but there is love there, too. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’ll always be us,” she says again, and it sounds more like a promise than before. “I’ll make sure of it.” She’ll make this monument, make it stand tall and proud. People will throw rocks and spears, but it’ll still be what it was always: good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kiyoko’s frozen again as she stares down at Yui’s fingers wrapped around hers. They’re walking on the edges of butterfly wings now. They’re looking for more time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(The end is not here. Just not the one you think).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You don’t know-“ </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes, I do.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>More silence, as they consider an alternative ending as real as the scars left upon their bodies.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Hold on, hold on, hold on- </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Okay,” Kiyoko says, and a distant wave crashes down on a distant shore in a distant land where hope becomes rekindled. A new beginning. A new sunrise that marks the beginning of the rest of their lives.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>”Okay?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. Okay.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She pulls Yui closer to her, and breathes life back into the rosebushes between her lungs as their lips meet, soft and familiar. Smoke and rain. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a vision Yui had only ever held in the yellow apple of her eye because for her, love can be anything she wants it to be. She’s forgotten this, in her life hidden under the crushing fist of war. Love can be letting go and holding on. Everything that is good in the world. Rosebushes on fire and pancakes for breakfast. Peaches and cream.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Easy. Terrifying. Light.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Love can be found in a tent on a battlefield, nestled in between ink-stained maps and coffee mug rings. On a cobblestone street near a harbor, as sea birds fly overhead. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Love can be found here, in a cottage in the middle of the woods with wind chimes in the front door and a garden out back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Love is here, in this space.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Picture this. Just picture this). </p>
<p> </p>
<p>☉</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey, Yui. I think we might have flour after all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Great. That’s great.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>☉</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>In the end</b>, those who have fought for their happy ending deserve it the most. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come yell at me on <a href="https://twitter.com/oikawafflehouse">twitter.</a></p>
<p>hi i wrote this during the early hours of the morning when i should have been sleeping and now i'm SOFT. </p>
<p>this was heavily inspired by taylor swift's new ablum, 'folkore', if you couldn't already tell lmao. </p>
<p>i don't really have that many rarepairs i could see myself writing about, but this is one i hold dear to my heart, especially because i think they would have had such a nice dynamic together.</p>
<p>as always, thanks for  reading! kudos are really awesome and comments give me enough energy to fight a hundred trees, but do as you please!</p>
<p>have a nice day or night and drink lots of water!!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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